Punxsutawney Phil Makes His Official Call

If you were hoping for an early spring, better climb back into bed. Early Wednesday, Punxsutawney Phil made his annual Groundhog Day prediction on what the weather is looking like for the near future, and it appears we have six more weeks of winter ahead of us, reports the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Locals gathered at Gobbler's Knob in Punxsutawney, Pa., to hear Phil's prognostication, an event organized by the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club's Inner Circle. In Phil's 136th forecast, the groundhog saw his shadow, just like in 2021, which means spring is not afoot.

That doesn't mean Phil's look into the future is set in stone. USA Today notes that he's only been correct about 40% of the time over the past decade. Last year, he was half right: He saw his shadow, guaranteeing 42 more days of wintry misery, but while February's temps were indeed below average across the US mainland, March's were above average. "There is no predictive skill for the groundhog during the most recent years of the analysis," the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration sniffed in a report last year. (More groundhog day stories.)